The Hotel Nantucket (18)

Edie has successfully checked guests into two rooms and one suite when a family bursts into the lobby. It’s a mother and two children, one girl, one boy. The mother is tall and supermodel-thin—she’s all flat chest and protruding hip bones—and she has what Edie can only describe as “peacock hair,” dyed ombré streaks of green and blue. She’s either way cooler than your average mother, Edie thinks, or going through a midlife crisis.

Edie is on hold with Cru, attempting to secure a dinner reservation for the Katzens in room 103. She watches the little boy make a mad dash for one of the chess sets. When he picks up a knight and moves it, Edie hangs up.

“Louie!” the mother says. “Get back here this instant.”

“They have chess!” Louie shouts. He goes to the opposite side of the board and moves a pawn.

Next to Edie, Alessandra snaps to attention and gives the family her radiant (and phony) smile. “Welcome—”

“Welcome to the Hotel Nantucket!” Edie calls out, stepping on Alessandra’s words.

Without removing her sunglasses, the peacock-haired mother looks from Edie to Alessandra as though she’s arrived at a fork in the road. She seems inclined to go to Alessandra, and Edie wonders if she will be forced to suffer this rejection checkin after checkin, day after day, all summer long. Given the choice between Edie and Alessandra, people will always choose Alessandra, either because she’s beautiful or because she radiates the mesmerizing self-confidence of a Kardashian.

Edie waves the woman over so there can be no mistake. “I’ll check you in!”

Alessandra’s bracelets clinkety-clank. It’s the passive-aggressive sound of her discontent. Thankfully, the phone rings and Alessandra answers it. Edie splinters her attention long enough to realize that it’s the hostess from Cru calling back. Alessandra can handle the Katzens’ dinner reservation.

“Okay?” the peacock-haired woman says. She approaches with her children now firmly in hand. Both have white-blond hair and are wearing little round spectacles with thick lenses that make their eyes look like pale blue fish swimming behind glass; they’re so odd-looking, they’re cute. “My name is Kimber Marsh and this is Wanda and Louie. We’d like to book a room.”

“I can certainly help you with that,” Edie says. Their first walk-in! Lizbet will be thrilled; she confided to Edie that she’s concerned about their low occupancy. “What kind of room would best suit your needs?”

“I’d say we need a room with two queens. I can’t very well get them their own room, they’re too young.”

“For how many nights?”

“I’d like to stay for the entire summer.”

The entire summer? Edie thinks. She starts vibrating with excitement. This is what Lizbet has been hoping for: people hearing about the hotel and walking in off the street to book rooms.

“The rate on our deluxe guest room with two queen beds is three twenty-five,” Edie says. “With tax and fees, that room is four hundred dollars.”

“That’s fine,” Kimber says. “Please book us until…” She pulls up the calendar on her phone. “The kids have to be back in school then…add a few days to get ready…let’s say August twenty-fifth.”

Edie checks her availability, glances at Alessandra, who is just hanging up with Cru, and says, “Tell you what, I’m going to give you a free upgrade to one of our family suites.” The hotel has twelve suites and only one of them has been booked, so Edie feels fine about upgrading Kimber Marsh. The suites are divine and, in Edie’s opinion, should not be left languishing. Suite 114, which is the one Edie is giving the Marsh family, has a big living area with a full wall of brand-new hardcover books, all for the guests’ reading pleasure, and there’s a window seat overlooking Easton Street. This particular suite has a master bedroom and a whimsical room for kids with four wide bunk beds connected by tunnels and rope bridges; there are hidden reading nooks, and there’s even a swing. It’s very extra. Wanda and Louie will love it.

“You’re upgrading us?” Kimber says. She raises her sunglasses to the top of her head so she can read Edie’s name tag. “Edie Robbins, you’re an angel fallen to earth.”

Edie studies Kimber’s face. She has bleary-looking blue eyes with brownish-purple rings beneath them; she reminds Edie of a beleaguered mom in a laundry-detergent commercial. Edie fills with joy at being able to offer this nice blue-and-green-haired woman an upgrade. “It’s my enormous and whole-hearted pleasure,” she says. She’s overcome with a sense of professional pride and fulfillment. This is what hospitality is about—offering the guests something extra, something that makes them feel special, singled out and tended to. “I’ll just need to run a credit card.”

“Well, that’s the thing,” Kimber says. She glances at the children, who are as still as sentinels beside her. “Kids, go play chess, please. But only one game.”

“I don’t want to play chess,” Wanda says. “I want to read.” She holds up a book that Edie recognizes—a vintage Nancy Drew mystery with the canary-yellow back cover. The Secret of Shadow Ranch. Edie read the same edition when she was Wanda’s age.

“Please, Wanda?” Louie says. “I’ll let you win.”